Cardinal principles, party-building, and unity

published February 7, 2017

Greetings. This is a contribution to a discussion of cardinal principles.
It also addresses some other party-building-related topics. Visitors who
don't know what any of that means should ignore this. Those who are here
just to read news and analysis should ignore this. This would be a
distraction for you. Your time would probably be better spent catching up
with news you haven't yet read.

This isn't being sent to anyone encrypted, and it isn't addressed to a
certain cell only. It obviously responds to a statement that anyone could
read and another cell linked to on its homepage. So this isn't an example
of relations with a particular cell, much less any that are private. That
doesn't mean there can't be multiple people who read this whom should be
considered part of the MIM.

This is an unusual piece of writing. Maybe there shouldn't be more than one
item like it per month on a site like this. Certainly, this site isn't here
to serve any kind of party-building function primarily, as one can tell
from the content of many news articles. This website continues to claim to
be run by a MIM cell, though, and there may be a legitimate question about
this cell's thoughts about organizational questions in this supposedly new
era of u.$. hegemony, Trump's presidency. The news and review articles on
this site are for anyone to copy in whole or part without payment or
permission, but some may have questions about how to relate to this site's
content, some of which they may disagree with. Attitudes toward organizing
and struggle/unity may differ. Cardinal principles are relevant to those
attitudes.

Let's delve into this. It is assumed the reader is familiar with most MIM
ideological, theoretical and strategic writing available on the Web. It is
assumed the reader knows some of the history of the political milieu in
which the MIM formed and developed. That is the history discussed in
history books or which MIM itself has discussed publicly.

The MIM has long had a special or featured list of points often called
cardinal principles and sometimes including one additional point,
democratic centralism. Within the MIM, the points have been viewed in six
ways, each with more or less emphasis at different times (this isn't
intended to be exhaustive): 1) as a guideline for forming a new communist
party instead of joining or staying in an existing one, 2) as a statement
of how MIM differs from some other communists considered Marxist or not, 3)
as a guideline for classifying other organizations as
Marxist/scientific-communist (who may be non-MIM), 4) as a guideline for
deciding whether to have a certain level or kind of relations with another
communist organization, 5) as a guideline for indicating a particularly
high degree of affinity among and between organizations considered Marxist,
and 6) as a guideline for deciding who to accept into a new communist
party. These are related and may seem to overlap greatly in some cases, but
they differ at least somewhat.

In addition to appearing in documents in which other beliefs/goals were
mentioned, MIM cardinal principles originally arose in a context of other
people already claiming to be some kind of communist, specifically
Marxist-Leninists. Some of these were thinking they were influenced by Mao
Zedong. Today there are still people who view the seizure of power in 1949
favorably but not much else; one doesn't have to be a Marxist to view
certain events more favorably than some others do. (Thus some have no need
to claim Maoism prematurely, which may cause problems down the road. This
issue, seen several decades ago, persists.) Others drew some philosophical
inspiration or took some verbiage from Mao but didn't accept much of the
theory or analytical conclusions -- potentially a weird kind of "Maoist"
philosophical or rhetorical orthodoxy without the concrete substance. Some
of these never digested dialectical materialism to begin with. Opportunists
chasing after people with petty-bourgeois, nitpicky-intellectual,
white-nationalist, pro-amerikan, anti-Islam or lazy tendencies watered
things down, hedged, vacillated, and made nihilist or idealist criticisms
that purported to be anti-dogmatic and scientific but didn't actually
advance theory or analysis useful for making revolution. They more often
succeeded in recruiting and leading people on cultic and unscientific
bases. It was important to have some specific points that people needed to
agree with consciously and uphold unambiguously to gain entry to certain
contexts.

Today, various people who have de-emphasized Maoism, in some cases stopped
calling themselves "Maoist" (thankfully), and never were Maoists really,
sometimes use stereotypical "Maoist" language more than the genuine Maoists
they no longer seem to care to be counted among. Struggling with or against
such people should not be any priority, but that doesn't mean they haven't
influenced people who may end up wanting to work with MIM in some
capacity.

So, addressing Maoism itself directly could be important for multiple
reasons. It could be more important now than it was in the past.

Another piece of context is that, when MIM was first forming its cardinal
principles, MIM -- though it was emphasizing Maoism more than many others
-- could have considered fraternal some Marxist-Leninists who agreed on
some important questions but weren't yet ready to call themselves "Maoist"
or recognize Maoism as a new stage of Marxism. (Again, this assumes the
reader has a prior knowledge and can conduct literature searches on their
own.) Decades later, such permissiveness may no longer be appropriate, and
there may new reasons to not add points to a concise numbered list without
unambiguously making Maoism itself a cardinal point in the same list.

Two things: 1) It should be obvious that most claiming to be
Marxist-Leninist and claiming to agree with what most of what the Soviet
Union did during World War II in foreign relations should have no problem
with the concept of a united front. There was clear cooperation with
capitalist countries and bourgeois forces not even claiming to be socialist
and which were even against socialism. It is a little hard to understand
how anti-Asian racists selectively criticizing Mao for various united
fronts and united front concepts get away so much with pretending they
don't notice what the Soviet Union did. 2) The points about the new
bourgeoisie within the party and the GPCR are particularly related to both
upholding Maoism and rejecting the counterrevolution in the Soviet Union
that some supposed Marxist-Leninists didn't acknowledge. Maoism has more
than two points, though, and people may already agree with other points of
Maoism while those two points are emphasized. Indeed, MIM's 3rd Cardinal
explicitly mentions Maoism ("not the principle vehicle to advance Maoism in
this country," "not the principal vehicles to advance Maoism within those
countries"). This may seem oddly self-referential, but suggests placing the
whole-national-working-class labor aristocracy idea in a setting of prior
acceptance of Maoism. (Unfortunately, there is some ambiguity of wording
that might allow people who themselves reject Maoism to agree with the
third cardinal.)

In other words, in a certain historical and organizational context --
trying to locate oneself as a communist, specifically in relation to people
already claiming to be communists and Marxist-Leninists (with the
understanding that unity with various non-communist and non-proletarian
forces is desirable in many cases, even most cases at this point in time)
-- there may be no need for more than a few cardinal principles. A few
cardinal principles may be sufficient to distinguish oneself from people
who are deviating or revisionist, who may still belong in certain united
fronts, just not as communists warranting some special treatment. At one
time, as has been noted and for certain reasons, Third World parties to be
considered fraternal weren't required to uphold the point about whole
populations of oppressor nation workers in the First World; only two or
three (depending on inclusion of democratic centralism) of the cardinal
points applied to them then for fraternal purposes, not three or four.

Some united fronts may include people claiming to be revolutionary,
radical, or progressive, more than other united fronts. In very rare cases
today, or in what should be very rare cases, an alliance may consist mostly
of unaffiliated organizations calling themselves "Marxist" or "socialist."
Even if they seek a necessary united front with MIM on the basis of some
perceived or real similarity, people considering themselves
Marxist-Leninist should understand they may be viewed as no more than
valuable non-communist partners, and that is fine. The perception may be
mutual. They shouldn't push too hard for a special recognition that may
confuse everyone and help nobody.

There is a question about whether additional specified points may be needed
in a situation where many non-communists are for whatever reason blowing up
the phone and seeking a kind of relationship that other non-communists
don't have. There may of course be a need for clarification in that
situation so less time is wasted, but not all MIM cells are in that
situation. On the other hand, nobody is in a position to judge everyone's
needs, and it may very well be the case that a cell needs to have some
public list of points appropriate to its situation, but clearly separate
from MIM's Three (or Four) Cardinal Principles and not in any way presented
as a replacement or alternative to them. There could be MIM cardinal
principles as one list, and separate cell-specific points clearly described
as such.

There may be a question about whether the MIM as a whole needs uniformity
on a certain special list of points, which could be presented as a minimum.
MIM's Cardinal Principles could be a foundation for a separate,
cell-specific list and at the same time keep all six
guideline/differentiation functions mentioned above without the potential
for splitting on too many points. This may lead to a contradiction since
the MIM Cardinal Principles list and a cell-specific points list may
overlap in how they are used. Certainly, however, cells should be free to
determine their own membership needs and requirements apart from not
letting people in who may argue against any of the cardinal points.

Cardinal principles by themselves shouldn't be expected to prevent
degeneration or infiltration completely. Whether there should be a uniform
list needs to be based on realistic expectations and specific purposes. It
may be helpful to imagine an organization or movement that has no cardinal
principles at all, or maybe only one real cardinal principle: follow the
leader. A movement that goes from being non-Maoist to supporting Maoism to
being non-Maoist again and even declining to call itself "Marxist" may need
a strong individual to lead them more than it needs a high level of verbal
agreement or consistency over time. A petty-bourgeois-individual-centered
movement that doesn't have cardinal principles and ends up drifting toward
whatever may, while managing to confuse some people not paying close
attention, end up being more principled in a way, actually, than a movement
claiming to agree with certain positions while not really being Marxist.

So having a list of "main points" actually enables infiltration in a way.
Some people might be forced to lie to get in. Others might end up in a
party or cell who are sincere but aren't really strong on one of the
points, or who appear to be very strong on all of the "main points" but are
deficient in other ways. A list is necessary within the party-building
context, though, and may be necessary within the cell cooperation context
unless cells are to be approached merely as potentially anti-communist
united front partners. Yet, having a longer list of points may not solve
the infiltration problem, particularly if there is a lack of attention to
historical context or a larger scientific context.

Of course they pay less attention to international exploitation, but
believe it or not most Republicans and many Democrats in some sense know
there is no industrial proletariat in the united $tates as a particularly
progressive exploited force. The Democrats just use that as an excuse to do
things through the Democratic Party in typical Democratic Party ways as
well as in off-beat ways. Today, MIM's 3rd Cardinal Principle becomes
operable for revolution within the context of Maoism. Of course, in a
historical context of Maoism not yet existing as a new stage of Marxism,
the emphasis might be on Marxism-Leninism or Marxism, but the year is 2017,
not 1957 or 1907. (It seems fair to say some of those who seemed to suggest
both Maoists and non-Maoists, even Trotskyists, could be in the same party,
as long as they agreed with the super-profit bribery aspect of MIM's third
cardinal, ended up contributing to the growth of wacky organizations with
severe problems of line. Some ended up disowning their own creations and
ideologies and bizarrely trying to blame MIM for them after MIM had spent
years intensely struggling against party-building deviation while
nonetheless upholding Maoism as the latest stage of Marxism. That strange
behavior led to some blurring together of lines in some people's
perception.)

Similarly, both Democrats and most Republicans including neo-conservatives
claim to be against all oppression globally though there may be less
emphasis on the power and group-over-group aspects. Both Republicans and
Democrats, while rejecting the real dictatorship of the proletariat, have
authoritarian tendencies partly due to frustration with each other. Both
are amenable to the idea of different temporary alliances of some kind.
Without genuine Maoism and its scientific method, such people can easily
end up supporting armed conflicts in the Third World that actually help the
united $tates. Some may think the Third World is where the revolution's at
and just find themselves caught up in a CIA, Pentagon or State Department
mission. That doesn't mean armed struggle in the First World is advisable
now, but without Maoism various points can become unanchored, with serious
consequences.

Some may even agree the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was the
farthest advance of communism in humyn history, but still reject the
Cultural Revolution or communism. The same may accept the Chinese communist
party became pro-capitalism and even accept some form of the idea that
Maoism isn't applicable with u.$. workers as a revolutionary vehicle, while
rejecting Maoism themselves.

MIM's original main point about the labor aristocracy focused on white
workers in North America. MIM eventually expanded the point to include the
oppressor nation so-called working classes in various First World countries
and dropped the particular reference to North American white workers. There
was in fact another development on this same point: the bought-off classes
were increasingly viewed as including even oppressed nation workers with
full u.$. citizenship. In some cases, this change was spelled out as a
point. The MIM promotes or refers to Maoism in many pieces of literature,
but others' not understanding the reasons and method behind these
developments of MIM's 3rd Cardinal Principle could lead to a reversion to
the old white-worker-focused position and adopting positions similar to
those of Democrats, who talk about white privilege and white worker racism
etc. while obscuring privilege of non-whites in the united $nakes. The most
angry rhetoric against whites can be used to exaggerate u.$. non-whites'
potential in a way that could even reintroduce false notions about the
white workers eventually. MIM's current, more expansive thinking related to
the 3rd cardinal principle, though, can also be abused, for more of an
international purpose. (Divorced from science, the idea that no large
non-lumpen, non-migrant group in the united $tates is a vehicle for
revolution could lead to supporting ultra-leftism or class collaboration
with the CIA in the Third World.) The practice of agitating white workers
as if they were a revolutionary class is particularly bad in some
situations, however.

MIM's 4th Cardinal Principle, involving democratic centralism, is important
partly because it deals with what is unstated in a short list.
Unfortunately, it is harder (albeit not at all impossible) to have
democratic centralism without a party, and in the ongoing circumstance of
having only MIM cells and not MIM parties with a presence on the Web, it
may be easy to set aside the fourth cardinal principle in statements.
Democratic centralism is nonetheless important at least as something for
any MIM organization to strive for internally when there could be enough
people to apply the principle. At least one other MIM cell has already
acknowledged this on the Web in the context of the cell structure. Without
a strong and clear emphasis on democratic centralism, problems could
conceivably result from having a list of points that may in some sense be
incomplete.

Cardinal points are particularly important for people to agree with both
within an organization and privately as individuals, but decisions on
non-cardinal questions may be just as important to comply with. After all,
strictly upholding (externally) all of the majority's decisions is an
integral part of democratic centralism. A question arises as to why more
than a couple of cardinal principles are necessary. Isn't democratic
centralism all-encompassing? The answer could be threefold. 1) "Democratic
centralism" is easier said than done even if the fundamentals involved are
simple. A whole article, "Democratic Centralism"
(https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/wim/democent.html) --
published in MIM Notes in 1991 -- and similar articles had to be written.
2) A topic of seemingly larger scope, dialectical materialism, is also not
vacuous or unimportant but seemingly doesn't appear, specifically, in any
MIM cardinal points list itself. Though dialectical materialism is
mentioned in MIM definitions of "communist" and "Marxist" and appears on
pages containing a list of points, giving more weight to democratic
centralism while not mentioning dialectical materialism at all in the same
piece or section could be misleading. There are many organizations claiming
to practice democratic centralism who are somehow cults full of people who
are non-scientists who have not been trained to lead independently. The
"democratic" part of their "democratic centralism" is of poor quality, and
they have an unacceptable level of internal unevenness that is very
apparent in public and even extolled in some cases. Their majorities
seemingly haven't strongly internalized whatever correct method and theory
may be found in some pockets. 3) Democratic centralism is important in its
own right and isn't just some kind of catch-all.

In other words, there could be problems with making democratic centralism
more prominent to the exclusion of other things from a brief list or
statement. There could also be a problem with not mentioning democratic
centralism at all or treating it only as an indefinite stand-in for an
answer to a question that may need to be upheld according to discipline
just as much for a short period or may be of unusually critical importance
in a specific struggle of short duration.

There could be a variety of reasons for the traditional MIM approach of
considering democratic centralism a cardinal principle and attaching it to
a short list of more than two points, but not always appearing to put it in
the same category as the points in that list.

Some may feel what goes in some list that few may read isn't a big deal.
The issue is development going forward. The issues involved in these lists,
and their formation and acceptance, are in fact important.

At the time of this writing, this cell supports the following
conclusions:

There is no such thing as a Maoism that is merely intellectual and Maoism
is a means to an end -- communism -- but it may give the wrong impression
at this time to make the communist goal look like a more important point
than Maoism (Marxism-Leninism-Maoism), which contains the communist goal.
The MIM shouldn't end up seeming to having had to split from people who
weren't claiming to be Maoist in the first place. (That could be an
appearance even if there is clarification elsewhere.) People who are not
Maoists shouldn't be encouraged to think they may be able to be members of
MIM or a fraternal communist organization or group. There is a difference
between splitting from revisionists and not calling "fraternal" people who
aren't even calling themselves Marxist. Of course there may be liberal
deviation, for example, within an organization, but various people should
be excluded from certain relations in the first place so there is no need
to divorce them.

The cell structure should not be an excuse for anyone to fail to uphold
Maoism ever, or democratic centralism when it can be implemented properly.
One can imagine a situation in which democratic centralism is weak or
nonexistent and non-Maoists are allowed in using the excuse of not being a
party -- or by interpreting cardinal principles either too isolatedly or
too loosely, leading to people leaving eventually or needing to leave
(because of a difficulty with understanding or discipline).

Regarding strategic points: The JDPON of course isn't inconsistent with,
but doesn't follow in a simple way from, MIM's 3rd Cardinal. Emphasizing
the JDPON could be related to both the 3rd Cardinal and a rejection of the
re-proletarianization idea. Opposition to the re-proletarianization idea
may very well have a theoretical basis (more universal in space and time
than most analyses). Even if it doesn't, then the JDPON would naturally
follow from the continued factual absence of an internal proletariat (in
which case, the JDPON may not need to be mentioned), but the JDPON could be
perceived as mainly a point of strategy as has been suggested. If a
specific point of strategy is to be included, it should be the
international united front against u.$. imperialism. It probably shouldn't
be the JDPON over imperialism in general, which at this time isn't as
important to emphasize as the international united front against u.$.
imperialism. If there can't be agreement about this at this time, such
strategic points should be omitted altogether. However, including a more
general point about the dictatorship of the proletariat may also be
problematic because of reasons similar to those discussed above.

The possibility of an international united front including imperialist
countries against one imperialist country is an important point of theory
that may need to included as a cardinal point. The specific international
united front against u.$. is obviously a point of strategy that may be
discarded (though not in the near future), but such united fronts have a
particular theoretical basis that the MIM has discussed. (The united front
in general, New Democracy as a thing emergent in the history or future of
many oppressed nations, the concept of a principal contradiction, and other
points of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, are also points of theory and there must
be no mistake about it.)

This cell would support a list of cardinal principles as follows:

• MIMP's current points #4, #5, and #6 -- at this time exactly as written

• a fourth point: "We promote a united front with all who oppose
imperialism. We cannot fight imperialism and fight others who are engaged
in life-and-death conflicts with imperialism at the same time. Even
imperialist nation classes can be allies in the united front under certain
conditions. A step on the road to uniting all who can be united against
imperialism everywhere is to, at the international level, unite all who can
be united against u.$. imperialism."

• a fifth point, unnumbered but immediately following, about communist
party/cell members and recruits needing to accept majority rule when
democratic centralism can be implemented within the party or cell

As with presentations of other points, some presentations of the point
about democratic centralism refer to "MIM" as in "MIM accepts people as
members who agree on these basic principles and accept democratic
centralism." Of course, in contexts of mutual relations or recognition,
language like "MIM accepts" and "MIM upholds" may be inappropriate. (In
fact, though it should be obvious all true Marxist parties today have
democratic centralism, it seems a lack of understanding about whether the
democratic centralism point is more about democratic centralism itself,
than about MIM member expectations, may have contributed to confusion and
to de-emphasis of the fourth cardinal principle in some cases. Obviously,
non-MIM parties would not be expected to relate to a MIM party as
prospective members or uphold another party's majority rule for itself.)
However, all MIM organizations should understand the need for democratic
centralism -- in MIM and other communist cadre organizations -- in
principle as well as the larger Maoist context of these points.

Everyone should understand that larger context, and even having a sentence
like "MIM upholds the revolutionary communist ideology of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism" appear right before the list of points may not be
enough if people are given the impression that agreement with a few
specific points automatically makes them fraternal.

Non-MIM organizations have shown it is easy to not be "dogmatic" or
revisionist by not claiming or emphasizing Maoism or Marxism in the first
place.

Understandably, there may be some inertia against changing a list of
cardinal points -- as there should be, because changing them frequently
would undermine their purpose. The wording of the proposed point about
united fronts may be unclear for some. However, adding a point that
includes the international united front against u.$. imperialism would be a
better example of evolution than today having something like the communist
goal be a main point as if the theory and method leading to the
international anti-amerikan united front were not important to emphasize
now.

In any case, if there can't be agreement now, defaulting to MIM's cardinal
points list prior to the disappearance of the central MIM organization, as
has been suggested, would be wise. There could be some elaboration on the
3rd Cardinal Principle, but any critical points of differentiation that a
sufficient number of recognized MIM cells haven't yet agreed on should be
in a separate list that can in no way be confused with MIM cardinal
principles.

PARTY-BUILDING

The MIM has always opposed the international party idea. Even
www.etext.org/Politics/MIM was run by MIP-amerika openly before that party
disappeared from the Internet after experiencing obvious provocations and
problems with people some of whom ended up rejecting Maoism openly (proving
what MIP-amerika was saying many times over and the importance of one
struggle at that time). There is no guarantee a cell not claiming to be in
a certain country would end up in the same party as another cell even if a
new party were to form.

The emphasis here with PINotes is "global news" of a sort that Maoist
parties in various countries would have an interest in talking about, but
that doesn't mean PINotes offers anything that a Maoist in Iran or
Palestine would be better at doing. In global public opinion contexts,
certain things have to be supported and certain things cannot be supported.
The international united front against u.$. imperialism has to be
supported. Though Maoists everywhere should have high confidence about the
need for that united front and the lack of basis for domestic, internal
armed struggle in countries in the world in general at this time, questions
about when to launch a certain kind of struggle in a particular country is
something for a party in that country to comment on. When there appears to
be no genuine Maoist party in a particular country, the ability of anyone
in global media to support domestic struggles other than in the most
abstract or general way is limited. (This is partly why PINotes has not had
much content about movements within the u.$. and has so far addressed the
oil pipeline Sioux struggle against the united $tates only in global
contexts. All of this is deliberate.)

The united $tates is a huge First World country, and people travel to it
for various reasons. Much reliable information about it is available in
newspapers and on the Internet. However, even in the case of the united
$tates this cell is hesitant to comment on matters an amerikan MIM cell may
be in a better position to comment on. But what can we say. Some are
suggesting conditions in the united $tates are now more favorable to
Chican@ and New Afrikan nation-specific party-building. Either that is
true, or it isn't true. In either case, it would seem there is no reason to
have a new party for the united $tates as a whole. If there is a strong
basis for having a Maoist internal semi-colony party, then by all means
reality should let it come forth. The notion that, in 2017, with various
advances and developments, there is somehow more reason to have a
multinational u.$. party than to have a single-nation party is difficult to
fathom.

Many people of lumpen background have as much literary, intellectual and
scientific capability as non-lumpen leaders. So another possibility is a
party of lumpen dragons from the different nations within u.$. borders.
However, it seems safe to say nobody should be supporting the formation of
some multinational u.$. party just because of Trump. That could have
opportunist and even racist implications, because there were ten years for
a MIM-Aztlán to emerge and it didn't happen at least on the Web as far as
this cell can tell (not that everyone needs a Web presence), and more than
three years of Black Lives Matter. Pursuing the establishment of a
multinational party now could be based on white liberal anger and result in
massive infiltration and setbacks following unsustainable growth. Even if
migrant issues now are more consequential than they were several months
ago, that may just justify the formation of a party of Chican@s or
sojourners and make the pursuit of a multinational party of u.$. citizens
(even one excluding whites) more opportunist.

There clearly needs to be a party when a nation needs to have one
organization that practices democratic centralism and does work in many
different areas (geographically and functionally). That may or may not be
the case with the Chican@ nation and New Afrika right now, but this cell
hasn't noticed any MIM cell on the Web actually trying to justify existing
locality-based or locality-focused cells getting together face-to-face.

The Bolsheviks were around for about a decade and a half before the
proletariat seized power in Russia, and the Communist Party of China was
around for twice that long before the proletariat seized power in China.
However, both were involved in struggles against feudalism, and China and
Russia had a larger proletariat than most imperialist countries do now. The
international proletariat seized power in Germany when the Soviets occupied
in 1945, but German communists didn't play the principal role in that
despite much ignorance suggesting amerikans could do better at some point
in the future. The need for a communist party in a country like the united
$tates may thus be doubted for a variety of reasons.

There is no amerikan proletariat that is going to somehow ascend to power
in fifteen or thirty years, because there is no amerikan proletariat, not
any large enough to play a particular role for any purpose. That is a basic
fact that people outside the united $tates can now learn on their own
without getting into strategic and tactical questions particular to that
country. So only so much investigation is needed to know there isn't going
to be some amerikan communist party that is going seize power independently
or win an election any time soon. A party is needed to win a countrywide
election or seize power. The MIM builds public opinion for the proletariat
to seize power, but probably no MIM party itself is going seize power in
the united $tates or in any other First World country for that matter. Let
it not be said any MIM cell is delusional about this point.

There is still a national question within the settler u.$. entity's borders
because of national oppression of Chican@s, First Nations, and New Afrika.
This cell's ability to make an appropriate comment about the need for a
Chican@ communist party, for example, is more limited. A Chican@ party
would not be needed for the questionable purpose of trying to win a
countrywide election of the united $tates, but maybe the formation of a
Maoist Chican@ party or a more geographically oriented Aztlán party could
help advance a Chican@/Latin@ or global public opinion struggle. The
benefits (and drawbacks under computer and network surveillance) of working
through the Internet still need to be considered.

If there were to be some party needed in the united $tates, there is a cell
that would seem to be a good candidate for being involved in the emergence
of a party. It may at least be considered the vanguard in the united $tates
as far as organizations with a public Internet presence are concerned. None
of this would affect the need for a global united front against u.$.
imperialism. Even if there is a need for a Maoist party in the First World,
capitalist countries with states that are neither socialist nor
New-Democratic are dominating the anti-amerikan united front more than all
proletarian parties put together are, and there may be nothing anyone can
do about that until u.$. hegemony has ended.

The proletarian vanguard doesn't exist simply in the abstract, as in the
most advanced brain floating in a jar somewhere. What this means is that
the bourgeoisie may sometimes dominate an anti-imperialist united front as
it has in some cases in the past, and it would mistaken to build a party
just to try to avert this in the case of opposing u.$. hegemony -- as if
there were no united front worthy of support that Maoists didn't
dominate.

It also means there may be a need for any relatively small cell to try work
with others on some level, securely -- after careful consideration, after
studying what others are doing and trying to independently fill in gaps and
build on what others are doing without stepping on toes too much.

UNITY

Some seem to avoid the party label for themselves to avoid criticism as not
behaving as a Marxist-Leninist party should, but encouraging talk of
creating parties may be inadvisable for many reasons including this one:
More than one alleged party appeared on the Web seemingly inspired by some
selected part of MIM's literature and provided contact information, and yet
their apparent original publishing output is a fraction of what's on this
site. The problem with this is that this writer has a pretty good idea
about how many people and hours are involved in writing for PINotes, which
doesn't publish very frequently. There isn't all that many hours spent on
PINotes, in comparison with what a party with a small news staff would be
able to do after school/work or during breaks. Though a party may have a
variety of work to do, it doesn't seem that an organization with that much
less output would be able to justify encouraging others they have never
worked or spoken with, who found them on the Web, to contact them privately
as a party. When this cell is not calling itself a party, organizations
with both a much lower work-per-persyn figure (the assumption is that these
"parties" have more than two people) and a much lower total amount of work
probably shouldn't be calling themselves parties. They may not have reached
their potential as non-party organizations yet. This cell doesn't focus on
party-building work or questions, but in this way sets a bar. Other cells
that are no doubt doing more work than this one are setting a bar, too.
There should be no party popping up (centered outside prison) that is
incapable of duplicating what we are doing, and that could be true even in
the technical department with the number of people with computer skills
nowadays. If there is too much wishful egalitarian thinking on this point
there could be a problem.

Incidentally, a cell with many comrades might come into contact with
another cell doing more or less published/publicized work and should not
expect there to be democratic centralism between those cells unless there
is an agreement about exactly how many votes each cell gets. Otherwise,
people in the larger cell might start to feel some kind of way, or people
in the smaller cell might have something to resent. Without some agreement
about votes or weighting, it may be better for a cell to just have
democratic centralism internally while assuming a cell it comes across on
the Internet is one individual (and making that assumption known), or
engaging with others on a formally centralist, à la carte, no-contact or
purely work-exchange basis only. Both trading work that the other clearly
needs, and doing things for free with no expectation of having any other
input into a process, would be better than doing things for free on the
illusion there is some degree of democratic centralism when what is going
on is actually more likely to be half-assed and unaccountably
non-democratic.

Not to be too self-centered again, but in regard to this cell nobody should
feel they need to work with or take anything from this cell other than in
an à la carte way. Even if some don't consider this cell fraternal or even
proletarian, there is always the united front.

This cell has not maxed out what it can do by itself. People have not seen
anything yet, because this cell has severely neglected self-promotion
(marketing PINotes). Traffic could easily increase dozens of times within a
matter of weeks. PINotes isn't against links, but it doesn't need any cell
to link to it for this to happen.

One area in which PINotes would benefit from having more input (which could
happen in an appropriate publicly accessible forum) is specific feedback on
writing style. This cell would regard detailed, honest feedback in a
friendly way. Right now, there is conflicting feedback. For example,
likes/upvotes show some people can read, understand and appreciate most
articles, but some seem to genuinely have difficulty with comprehending
PINotes articles in general or are put off too soon by some possible
overdoing of style/spellings. It's not clear that using readability tests
helps here. Having writing that is too simple or conventional may actually
cause certain readers to lose interest.

However, PINotes isn't going to change just to be more readable or
agreeable with a larger number of people in some party-building context.
Attention spans and reading comprehension ability in general have decreased
in the last ten years, but PINotes is aimed at a global audience with
certain characteristics, not the masses somehow in a traditional sense
confused with lowest common denominator of First World petty-bourgeois
people. PINotes' intended audience may be able to help in international
contexts or in their own media without thinking they have to accept
Marxism. There is evidence of comprehension of various forms of complex
writing in PINotes, by non-Marxists who don't speak English as their first
language. It seems some native English speakers are just biased or
predisposed to process writing in certain ways.

Ultimately people in the First World will go where they need to go.
Struggling with others for low-quality recruits -- some of whom may be
easily put off by this or that or unwilling to search for meaning in a
difficult-to-understand piece of text -- is generally not a good use of
time. Competing with others for some kind of following in the Third World
among the same people is also of questionable merit. The current upsurge of
activism and protest in the First World should not be seen as meaning the
proletariat will lose something if it doesn't participate in intense
sectarian struggle.

This cell doesn't expect there to be agreement on every important point.
Recent PINotes articles discussing foreign investment and finance capital
may be too much for some to agree with. They may be too controversial
though some imperialist countries would be part of a global anti-amerikan
united front and the theory involved was discussed extensively by others
both decades ago and relatively recently in theoretical writing. Another
obvious point of potential disagreement would be all of the PINotes
articles discussing the two-state solution and amerikan opposition to
stability and Palestinian statehood -- although a large amount of specific
evidence has been presented.

Structurally, this cell cannot at this time do what it does in the public
opinion area and then also spend a lot of time debating these things.
PINotes already publishes too infrequently. So to some degree if, while
this cell continues to claim to be a MIM cell, another MIM cell with more
comrades were to publish substantive and complete rebuttals on the theory
or analysis involved in PINotes products, there may have to be openness to
the idea of developing centralism or one-way influence with that cell
without pretending there is democratic centralism when there isn't (or
perhaps shouldn't be, as in the case of being located in different
countries). MIM-Orchid would be receptive in this case and not expect to
have a vote formally or informally. There doesn't need to be any pretense.
The existence of an informal ideological center on the Web that is not
MIM-Orchid is already a matter of concrete fact, and MIM-Orchid has
signaled its willingness to accept others as leaders in certain areas of
discourse (that is, in a division-of-labor sense, not that MIM-Orchid
itself cannot lead). It does not seem the objectively existing informal
ideological center has published anything strongly contradicting the line
expressed with PINotes, but that could just be because PINotes is not as
focused on internal u.$. news.

There may not necessarily need to be "MIM-Orchid" as long as PINotes is
connected to MIM in some way. Anyone who doesn't want to be called "MIM" in
any context shouldn't be considered part of the MIM, but claiming to be MIM
publicly can ensure there is some stability in line. At some point
MIM-Orchid may vanish if leadership over PINotes is found in another cell
or a party that accepts the role on the basis of revealed line alone, not
vetting or face-to-face meeting. It would be normal to assume this cell is
either CIA/FBI/DoD or unreliable in the long run.